 Flag of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 3,895 [1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 United States ( Nebraska) | |
| Languages | |
| English, Ponca | |
| Religion | |
| traditional tribal religion, Christianity, Native American Church | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| other Ponca people, Omaha, other Dhegihan peoples |
The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska is one of two federally recognized tribes of the Ponca people. The other is the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.
They hold an annual powwow every August.
From the original Ponca Reservation, the tribe has repurchased a trust landbase of 819 acres (331 ha). Since the passage of the Ponca Restoration Act, the tribe has the legal right to conduct business in Iowa. [1]
The tribe has used the land to restore a bison herd to the area. [2]
The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska is headquartered in Niobrara, Nebraska. The tribe is governed by a democratically elected council. Candace Schmidt is currently serving as tribal chairperson. [1]
Ponca people are thought to have migrated to the Great Plains from the Ohio River valley. In the mid-16th century, Ponca people migrated with the Kansa, Omaha, and Osage north, up the Mississippi. They separated from the Omaha in the mid-17th century but reunited with them near the Niobrara River of Nebraska in 1793. Introduced European diseases had killed 90% of the Ponca people by 1804, when the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived in their lands. [3]
The Ponca signed their first treaty with the United States in 1817, ceding two million acres of their lands. In 1858, their reservation had been reduced to 100,000 acres (40,000 ha). Poncas were removed to Indian Territory; 25% of the tribe died from disease and starvation in a single year. Chief Standing Bear led a group on a 500-mile walking trek (800 km) back to their homelands in Nebraska to bury their dead. The subsequent trial, Standing Bear v. Crook established the writ of habeas corpus for the first time for Native Americans, also allowed the Poncas to have lands restored to them in Nebraska. [3] Niobrara Island was included in the original reservation.
In the 1930s, an archeological survey was begun on the Ponca/Niobrara Reservation south of the Niobrara River and Lynch, Nebraska. [4] In an effort to identify and save prehistoric artifacts before they were destroyed during agricultural development, the University of Nebraska and the Smithsonian Institution undertook a joint project. The team excavated a prehistoric Ponca village; the ten laborers on the project were paid by the Works Progress Administration of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration during the Great Depression. [4] The project was to survey, identify and protect ancient resources. The Ponca village included large circular homes up to sixty feet in diameter; their residences were located for almost two miles (3 km) along the south bank of the Niobrara River. [4] [5]
In the 1950s, the United States government unilaterally terminated recognition of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. Since 1990, the tribe reacquired 413 acres (167 ha) of their lost lands. The US government finally re-recognized the tribe in 1990. [6]
In 2018 farmers Helen and Art Tanderup gifted and deeded 1.6 acres (0.65 ha) of their land near Neligh, Nebraska, which had been in their family for 137 years, back to the tribe in the first ceremony of its kind; the Fifth Annual planting of sacred Ponca corn also took place. The land lies in the path of the historic Trail of Tears as well as the Keystone XL Pipeline. [7]
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Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held original Indian title to their land as an independent nation-state. The concept of an Indian territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.
The Iowa, also known as Ioway, and the Bah-Kho-Je or Báxoje, are a Native American Siouan people. Today, they are enrolled in either of two federally recognized tribes, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma and the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.
The Niobrara River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 568 miles (914 km) long, running through the U.S. states of Wyoming and Nebraska. The river drains one of the most arid sections of the Great Plains, and has a low flow for a river of its length. The Niobrara's watershed includes the northern tier of Nebraska Sandhills, a small south-central section of South Dakota, as well as a small area of eastern Wyoming.
The Ponca people are a nation primarily located in the Great Plains of North America that share a common Ponca culture, history, and language, identified with two Indigenous nations: the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma or the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska.
Standing Bear was a Ponca chief and Native American civil rights leader who successfully argued in U.S. District Court in 1879 in Omaha that Native Americans are "persons within the meaning of the law" and have the right of habeas corpus, thus becoming the first Native American judicially granted civil rights under American law. His first wife Zazette Primeau (Primo), daughter of Lone Chief, mother of Prairie Flower and Bear Shield, was also a signatory on the 1879 writ that initiated the famous court case.
The Omaha Tribe of Nebraska are a federally recognized Midwestern Native American tribe who reside on the Omaha Reservation in northeastern Nebraska and western Iowa, United States. There were 5,427 enrolled members as of 2012. The Omaha Reservation lies primarily in the southern part of Thurston County and northeastern Cuming County, Nebraska, but small parts extend into the northeast corner of Burt County and across the Missouri River into Monona County, Iowa. Its total land area is 307.03 sq mi (795.2 km2) and the reservation population, including non-Native residents, was 4,526 in the 2020 census. Its largest community is Pender.
Lewis and Clark Lake is a 31,400 acre (130 km²) reservoir located on the border of the U.S. states of Nebraska and South Dakota on the Missouri River. The lake is approximately 25 miles (40 km) in length with over 90 miles (140 km) of shoreline and a maximum water depth of 45 feet (14 m). The lake is impounded by Gavins Point Dam and is managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District.
Susette La Flesche, later Susette LaFlesche Tibbles and also called Inshata Theumba, meaning "Bright Eyes", was a well-known Native American writer, lecturer, interpreter, and artist of the Omaha tribe in Nebraska. La Flesche was a progressive who was a spokesperson for Native American rights. She was of Ponca, Iowa, French, and Anglo-American ancestry. In 1983, she was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. In 1994, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Thomas Henry Tibbles was an American abolitionist, writer, journalist, Native American rights activist, and politician who was born in Ohio and lived in various other places in the United States, especially Nebraska. Tibbles played an important role in the trial of Standing Bear, a legal battle which led to the liberation of the Ponca tribe from the Indian territory in Oklahoma in the year 1879. This landmark case led to important improvements in the civil rights of Native Americans throughout the country and opened the door to further advancement.
Joseph LaFlesche, also known as E-sta-mah-za or Iron Eye, was the last recognized head chief of the Omaha tribe of Native Americans who was selected according to the traditional tribal rituals. The head chief Big Elk had adopted LaFlesche as an adult into the Omaha and designated him in 1843 as his successor. LaFlesche was of Ponca and French Canadian ancestry; he became a chief in 1853, after Big Elk's death. An 1889 account said that he had been the only chief among the Omaha to have known European ancestry.
The Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, also known as the Ponca Nation, is one of two federally recognized tribes of Ponca people. The other is the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. Traditionally, peoples of both tribes have spoken the Omaha-Ponca language, part of the Siouan language family. They share many common cultural norms and characteristics with the Omaha, Osage, Kaw, and Quapaw peoples.
Standing Bear Lake, also known as Dam Site 16, is a park located at 6404 North 132nd street in West Omaha, Nebraska.
Native American tribes in the U.S. state of Nebraska have been Plains Indians, descendants of succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples who have occupied the area for thousands of years. More than 15 historic tribes have been identified as having lived in, hunted in, or otherwise occupied territory within the current state boundaries.
The Niobrara Reservation is a former Indian Reservation in northeast Nebraska. It originally comprised lands for both the Santee Sioux and the Ponca, both Siouan-speaking tribes, near the mouth of the Niobrara River at its confluence with the Missouri River. In the late nineteenth century the United States government built a boarding school at the reservation for the Native American children in the region. By 1908 after allotment of plots to individual households of the tribes under the Dawes Act, 1,130.7 acres (4.576 km2) were reserved for an agency, school and mission for a distinct Santee Sioux Reservation; the neighboring Ponca Reservation had only 160 acres (0.65 km2) reserved for agency and school buildings.
The Ponca Reservation of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska is located in northeast Nebraska, with the seat of tribal government located in Niobrara, Knox County. The Indian reservation is also the location of the historic Ponca Fort called Nanza. The Ponca tribe does not actually have a reservation because the state of Nebraska will not allow them to have one. However, they do in fact have a 15-county service delivery area, including counties spread throughout Nebraska, South Dakota and Iowa.
The Winnebago Reservation of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska is located in the U.S. in Thurston County, Nebraska, United States. The tribal council offices are located in the town of Winnebago. The villages of Emerson, south of First Street, as well as Thurston, are also located on the reservation. The reservation occupies northern Thurston County, Nebraska, as well as southeastern Dixon County and Woodbury County, Iowa, and a small plot of off-reservation land of southern Craig Township in Burt County, Nebraska. The other federally recognized Winnebago tribe is the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin.
Several Native American tribes hold or have held territory within the lands that are now the state of Iowa.
The Dhegihan migration and separation was the long journey on foot by the North American Indians in the ancient Hą́ke tribe. During the migration from present-day Illinois/Kentucky and as far as Nebraska, they gradually split up into five groups. Each became an independent and historic tribe. They are the Omaha, Ponca, Kaw or Kansa, Osage and Quapaw.
| Historic and present tribes | |
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| Present languages | |
| Present reservations | |
| Present tribal colleges and universities | |
| Historic figures | |
| Historic events | |
| Historic reservations | |
| Historic communities | |
| Historic sacred places | |
| Other historic places | |
| Precontact peoples | |
| Precontact communities |
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| Other precontact places |
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| Other topics | |